Garry Paskwietz, one of the longest-tenured writers covering USC’s football team, founding WeAreSC.com more than two decades ago, died on Sunday in Burbank. He was 52.

The website announced Paskwietz had suffered a stroke, and he had been hospitalized over the weekend.

Paskwietz was among the earliest to start college football websites dedicated toward covering a specific team in competition with mainstream media, providing updates on the season, as well as on offseason workouts and the year-round recruitment of high school prospects.

According to his bio, Paskwietz founded WeAreSC.com in late 1998 and previously wrote for Trojan Football Fax in which he provided news on the team to a horde of fans through their fax machines.

“He had a great vision for the Internet,” said Greg Katz, a longtime writer for WeAreSC.com. “He had a great vision for his passion of USC to create something that had never been created before. It was like he was part of the foundation for television coming into the 50s, late 40s.”

Katz, who met Paskwietz while attending some of USC’s preseason practices held at UC Irvine in the late 1990s, described him as “the godfather so to speak of USC football Internet,” and other people on Monday referred to him as a pioneer in their social-media tributes.

Paskwietz’s website, along with USCFootball.com, helped pave the way for at least a half-dozen websites that are now focused on the Trojans, including several affiliated with Rivals or 247Sports, and that host message boards for fans to communicate among each other.

WeAreSC.com was independent in recent years, but had previously been affiliated with ESPN and Rivals, among others. In its early days, subscriptions to the website were sold, as it provided weekly, if not daily, updates on USC’s pursuit of top prospects, including information on their visits to campus and the remaining schools they were considering before signing letters of intent, while newspapers and other more traditional news outlets were more hesitant when it came to wading into recruiting drama.

Katz recalled that Paskwietz was knowledgeable enough about high school recruits that former coach Pete Carroll would often ask for his opinions on certain prep players.

Erik McKinney, a former ESPN reporter who has covered recruiting, will take over for Paskwietz as the site’s publisher later this week, Katz said.

While covering the team at practices during the spring and fall, Paskwietz was often seen in a familiar perch, sitting in a lawn chair along the sideline at Howard Jones Field.

“He’s just a fixture,” said Ryan Abraham, who founded and publishes USCFootball.com. “He was always there.”

Abraham said Paskwietz pushed for websites to become credential holders for USC practices and games at a time when the team was almost exclusively covered by newspapers and TV/radio reporters.

Paskwietz, known by many people as Garry P, was also a frequent presence on USC’s pre-game radio show on KSPN-AM (710) and a guest speaker at booster or alumni gatherings throughout the Southland.

In addition to writing about the Trojans, he had also been an Emmy-award winning producer while covering high school football for Fox Sports.

Paskwietz was a graduate of North Hollywood High and USC, majoring in sports information. He previously interned in USC’s sports information department as a student.

After he launched WeAreSC.com, Paskwietz assisted several former USC athletes as they began careers in broadcasting, including former wide receiver John Jackson, who would go on to become a sideline reporter and later color commentator for the school’s radio broadcasts. He also brought on students from the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism to write and host videos for the site.

Joey Kaufman is the USC beat writer for the Southern California News Group. Since joining the Orange County Register in 2015, he has also covered Major League Baseball and UCLA athletics. His work has been recognized by the Associated Press Sports Editors and Football Writers Association of America. Kaufman grew up in beautiful downtown Burbank.

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